


Mirage

by ridorana



Series: let's get rabanasty [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: M/M, mildly late in-game but no spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-29 10:50:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11439312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ridorana/pseuds/ridorana
Summary: There are two things Balthier had to learn the hard way: One, do not ever take free samples from Rabanastran street vendors after dark. And two, after all this time, Vaan is far more aware than he's given the boy credit for.





	Mirage

 

 

There’s music in the Royal City tonight. The notes rise and fall in a tempting weave throughout the streets, a beckoning secret coming from every which-way. It’s a mesh of strings and flutes and drums, drums, drums - Dalmascans do enjoy their drums, Balthier thinks over the tempo from which he cannot find the source. The rhythms ricochet off city walls painted with the pinks and purples of dying dusk, and the Royal City glows. 

He’s walking West somewhere, Fran to his side, and it feels like the music has always been there, the way it snakes through the alleys and floats above the crowds. It’s strange, but not unpleasant. He takes it in quietly as they stroll towards the Bazaar, where the shops have closed with the setting sun and have opened anew for a  different market altogether.

Tents mushroom along the Bazaar’s streets, each offering a vibrant sizzling assortment of local fare. There’s roast Giza hare, turning slowly on its spit by the hand of an indifferent Seeq; fried Gigantoad sliced thinly, slathered with some kind of spicy dressing, and tucked in a warm bread-pocket; skewers upon skewers of crispy Cockatrice shoved at passerby left and right. All the energy and aggression of the everyday Muthru Bazaar, but at least this time no one is waving a “Lucky Bangaa Paw Necklace” or “Cursed Slaven Tooth—‘Haunted by Me Great Uncle’s Ghost!” at Balthier’s face and demanding his coin.

…Though when a withered moogle street vendor flutters up to Balthier mid-step and forces into his hand a small paper bowl sizzling with a hunk of … _something_ , Balthier finds himself fondly wishing for the former. “Free sample, kupo!” it croaks before haphazardly flying away in a fashion that suggests the small creature is most certainly drunk. He blinks at the reeking monstrosity in his hands, and his lip curls at what must be charred Hyena pelt sitting flaccidly in the paper boat like an old sock.

“Do Rabanastrans always pitch such convincing sales, Fran?” He quips, lips quirking at his own joke as he turns to face Fran—who is not there.

“Fran?”

Balthier blinks, searching for her telltale ears above the sea of Rabanastre’s finest. Yet _Rabanastre’s finest_ includes every race Ivalice has to offer, and a pair of Viera ears at the zenith of Rabanastre's Summer Harvest Celebration are not entirely unheard of. He shuffles aside and squints through the ongoing current of festival-goers.

Fran emerges from across the way shortly after a bustling Seeq steps on Balthier’s foot. A roasted vegetable skewer is held in her elegant hands. Whatever it is looks simply comical to Balthier—where in seven hells do they get vegetables so big? There looks to be an entire Mandragora head severed and stabbed just to make one street snack.

“There you are,” Balthier gestures in some direction with his hand. “And here I thought I’d have to eat this charred hyena pelt all by myself.” He holds it up to her with an expression as if to say, _seriously, by the gods, would you look at this?_ And she does, chewing thoughtfully on her own skewer. She plucks it from the boat to regard it closely, her nose twitching in distaste in such a way Balthier will never find not adorable, before she drops it to the ground very, very quickly. 

“That is not Hyena.” She walks towards the crowd suddenly, a wooden look on her face, Balthier at her heels.

“What is it, then?” He can’t help but ask, smirking at this entire thing. Oh, Rabanastre.

“You do not wish to know." 

He believes her.

They meander along the oil-lamplit streets together and take in the sights, smells, sounds, color—the city of Rabanastre is alive always with color, Balthier must give it credit for that. Even under the cold iron gaze of the Empire does Rabanastre dance and sway defiantly in a flurry of orange, blue, red, gold as Her people celebrate the coming of the new season.

Balthier even swears he catches wind of a certain heady scent furling quietly beneath that of food and smoke - it smells strongly of herbs he’s never known, and makes his lids heavy but core light in a not unpleasant way, no doubt coming from the massive bonfire alight in the North End …and no doubt the reason why nearly everyone was shuffling to the massive flames despite the irrepressible heat of late summer.

It’s hot. Nearly unbearably so. A dry, unforgiving heat, a heat which even a strong night breeze from the desert seems like a cruel joke in its utter lack of relief. Balthier’s vest hangs neatly in the Strahl that eve whilst Nono and the crew do heavy-duty maintenance, and as he walks alongside Fran he is simply content to be in lighter garb. His crisp, starch white tunic stands out like an obnoxious beacon in a sea of sun-soaked skin and deep desert hues, but no one seems to notice him. It is Rabanastre’s Solstice and the crowds shift around him like a kaleidoscope of music and color and shadows. Here, Balthier is perfectly content in his anonymity, and falls into a comfortable pace with his partner to merely enjoy the sights.

 

At one point they’re both stopped by a fountain to regard two Viera musicians plucking effortlessly at stringed instruments, and Fran tosses gil in the tortoise shell at their feet. They play along to the improvised tempo in the distance as if they’ve rehearsed for years. Balthier finally comes to source the drums he heard earlier towards the bonfire several blocks down, and notes how the dancing flames ahead hold a mysterious purple hue. The smell of herbs does not waver; he finds he doesn’t mind, and doesn’t bother to ask Fran her thoughts.

The two Viera finish their piece and rise in a fluid grace. They nod in regards to their small audience, collect their gil, and disappear amidst the crowd in a flurry of pastel chiffon and silk.

“They, too, head for the fire.” Fran states, and she eyes the flames ahead. Balthier follows them with his eyes, tracing the way the shadows leap and dance like grand spectres along the towering stone walls of Rabanastre, and nods slowly.

“Shall we join them?” he asks distantly, a pleasant buzz gnawing its way into his headspace. What _was_ crackling in the fire?

“There you two are!”

There’s a flash of platinum hair and dusky skin, and then Vaan appears before them, out of breath in such a way to imply he’d just been running from trouble his own arse got himself into.  Upon immediate observation, Vaan’s vest is off, his gauntlets too—he looks terribly plain considering the festivities, nearly naked without the ridiculous excuse for clothing and baubled armor. He looks between the two pirates, smiling with teeth too white for a war orphan, framed by lips wrought chapped by air dry as bone. All in all, a completely normal state for the desert bratling. 

“Was hoping to catch you guys; thought you’d both be hiding away in the Strahl with your wine or something.” In the dim of the street he wears an ever-present, mischievous glint in his eye flecked warmly by the hanging oil lamps.

“More of a whiskey man myself, though surely you don’t think us so drab. We do love a good party.” Balthier regards Vaan thoughtfully, pushing aside the commonplace observation that the churl looks rather comely under the lights casting shimmers across his sun-drenched skin. He crosses his arms.  “We’d never miss an opportunity to take in Rabanastre’s seemingly endless offerings of … _cultural eccentricities_.” He wants to ask about the Hyena Pelt That Isn’t a Hyena Pelt, but he doesn’t.

“In Eruyt,” Fran offers, “We too celebrated the change of seasons with food and music. A custom not foreign to me, though I cannot speak for my young partner here.” At this, Balthier feigns offense in a performance of gestures only Balthier can. Vaan validates him with a snort.

“Well, hey, I’m glad you came out.” He runs his bare hands through his tousled hair; it falls unceremoniously right back to where it was, but Vaan doesn’t seem to notice. Balthier does, though; he wonders how Dalmascan garb, which leaves such little to the imagination, has him imagining so much. “Penelo’ll wanna see you - she’s performing in the square like she does every year at midnight. She loves an audience,” he adds with a smirk. 

“Not unlike someone I know,” Fran adds. “We will have to see her, then."

“Midnight!” Balthier exclaims. “I do believe that’s past your bedtime, old girl.”

“And far past yours, hume-child; keep up the sharp tongue and it will be off to bed without supper.” 

At this, Vaan laughs—it’s loud and true and neither sky pirate can hide their grin at the exchange themselves. It’s a good night in the heart of Rabanastre, and in Vaan’s laugh Balthier can almost forget there is a war outbreak looming in the veins of these very streets. He can see why the children like him so.

“Well, I’m glad you guys came out. Rabanastre’s summer harvest celebration isn’t one to miss, and I’ve been going ever since I can remember. It gets bigger every year.” He looks around him, the smile on his face still lighting his features in a way the oil lamps cannot; his grin is lazy and heavy and in his eyes Balthier can catch a twinkle of mischief. He indulges in his curiosity where the sound of his voice is drowned by the din.

“Tell me,” Balthier pries lowly, eyes lingering past Vaan at the rather hypnotic sway of the massive fire ahead, “What manner of leaves and herbs at this celebration do you Dalmascans burn that can legally elicit a city-wide high?”

Vaan looks a strange mix of guilty and coy. “It’s snakehyps.” His voice is low and quiet as he looks between the two pirates. It’s clear he’s thrilled to be telling _them_ something new for a change. “Was actually used in Lowtown a bunch to calm down the poor folk during the slave trade; they’d use a ton of them in the fires there, bags and bags of them, and kinda made everyone zone out… made it easier for transporting the people. Less struggling, that way.” He pauses for a moment, as if retelling Rabanastre’s history renders him hollow, before the dark expression flickers away like firelight. 

“But anyway, that was like, a hundred years ago—now we have just a little left, use ‘em for special occasions, like this… in small batches it just kinda makes everyone have a good time, y’know?" His smile is forced and his voice cracks once in the wake of Dalmasca’s dry summer heat. "That’s kinda what it was for, anyway, before Nalbina abused it. Pretty sure Old Dalan made up the recipe since he’s like, a thousand years old. Anyway, that’s all kind of a trade secret, so don’t go blabbing or Dalan’ll rip off my ear and make a necklace out of it or something.”

Balthier blinks. That was awfully darker than he was expecting, yet here he remembers the toil Rabanastre has gone through time and time again, with its long-standing history of being a bargaining chip in the ever-present game of war. One would think a history riddled with scars as deep as Dalmasca’s would harden her people, carve lines beneath their eyes far before their years, pull at the curve of their lips until the seams are taut and thin.

And yet, he takes in Vaan, now - round eyes, bright with life and clouded by snakehyps; soft features in the slope of his nose, curve of his chin; full lips suited for a smile just as well as a pout; and Balthier realizes that this boy _is_ Dalmasca, every square inch of sun-darkened skin and strand of flaxen hair that comes alive in dry desert wind. He realizes, all in this moment, that the boy before him is what they may be fighting for all along.

Balthier catches himself staring, perhaps a little too late. He imagines Vaan has probably noticed, as he's wearing a smile that pairs too well with eyes thickened from more than just snakehyps. It feels like minutes have passed when it’s been only seconds, and the pirate breaks his trance to damn the herbs penetrating his mind all too readily despite its pleasant tingle.

“No longer a mystery, then, the source of my headache,” Fran comments, bringing her long fingers up to rub at the corners of her eyes as she breaks the reverie. “Let it be evidence to my fondness for Penelo that I shall remain here for her performance come midnight.”

The drums pick up again, louder, faster, in the centre. It stirs the crowds shuffling by them, a rousing beat that elicits whoops and jeers as people rush to the square. The fire roars. In the distance, people begin to dance. Vaan glances behind, and turns back to them just as quickly.

“D’you wanna dance?” And he’s looking right at _Balthier_ , eyes unwavering and cheeks tinged in some soft pink of mirth under the glowing lights; the question is sudden and light and casual and hopeful, as if to imply, why _wouldn’t_ he ask Balthier to dance? And - well, the pirate won’t let Vaan know the question is …unexpected. Throughout their journeys Vaan has asked many a question, often unwarranted, never not exasperating in a way that left Balthier wondering if Vaan was honestly _trying_ to annoy him.

But here, in his element, in his birthplace, Vaan only grins, eyes open and earnest as the sky. And Balthier - always ready for a rousing round of improv - does not stutter in his response. 

“Ah, I do believe I must decline. I know not of Dalmascan dance and do prefer to remain audience to such a …celebration of culture so unlike my own.” 

Vaan doesn’t look disappointed, and wears a crooked twist in his lips and brow that implies he doesn’t buy Balthier’s excuse, but doesn’t really care. He doesn’t miss a beat.

“Actually, I was asking Fran.” And here, Fran actually laughs once, quiet and quick as if one simply could have imagined it. 

“A woman my age? You flatter me. Yet I too prefer to watch.”

Vaan chuckles and shakes his head as the wind sends his hair in a wild flurry that frames his round features. It would seem he’s wasted enough time here, just about. “So much for not being drab. Well, suit yourselves. At least watch Pen later if you’re both gonna be lame.” He moves to turns away and waves “Catch ya later!” His eyes linger on Balthier for only the most fleeting of seconds before he’s off, quickly lost in the never-ending crowd. Balthier watches Vaan’s blonde hair bob and ebb away until he’s staring into a mesh of strangers.

 “Quick one, isn’t he,” the Archadian drawls. 

Fran tilts her head to regard him, though she too stares into the mass of Rabanastrans, and hums thoughtfully. “Here one moment, gone the next - a mirage. Mayhap’s you start chasing now, lest you lose him.” 

Balthier barks out a laugh. “Fran, please. You know I prefer my liquor of choice aged to twenty years, at least.” 

Fran turns fully to face him, red eyes glinting in the swaying lantern lights in such a way that Balthier knows he’s suddenly at her mercy. She has his attention, now.

“An answer I was hoping to garner.” Her voice is low, and she seems taller than usual all of a sudden. “Though not much younger than your years, Vaan is a child best left untouched by the hands of one he blindly admires.” There is a chiding tone sifting below her accent, one that Balthier wagers he hasn’t heard in a few years. 

The buzz wafting pleasantly behind the pirate’s eyelids gives way to incredulity and annoyance often not warranted to Fran’s company. He doesn’t hesitate, tone sharp as the arch of his brow.

“Putting aside the implication that admiring my person comes blindly - As a pirate I snatch what I want, cradles not one of them, thank you. Rest easy on that.” Even to his own ears, he hears the hollowness of his haste. Too quick an answer. Mayhaps were Fran a duller gal, she may have offered a grin, perhaps even chuckled. But ‘lesser’ is the last word to describe his partner, and so her gaze does not waver.

“Unbecoming, such haste. Old though I am, my eyes see well.”

“Well then I needn’t tell you twice that your aim is far off the mark.” He doesn’t look at her as he says this.

“Your words are the only things saying that, you realize.” She’s feeling awfully wordy tonight. “A fool, I am not. Well aware I am of the way he looks at you; just as you, him, when no one watches. ”

Balthier snorts, makes no show to hide the roll of his eyes. This is getting old, fast, and the snakehyps weigh heavy on his tongue. “Define ‘no one’, then.”

“No one, but me.” She isn’t smirking, but Balthier can here the edge in her voice, mocking and knowing at once.

"Naturally." A beat. "Let's drink."

They don’t speak of Vaan for the rest of the night.

Several hours and spirits later, Balthier and Fran watch Penelo dance at midnight with an ensemble of equally lithe Dalmascan girls. They are a flurry of sun-darkened skin furling about in silks like smoke. Behind the dancers, the fire grows; it’s even more massive than Balthier initially thought, towering high above the heads of even the tallest viera. It crackles and spits glowing purple embers, and the scent of snakehyps is so obvious that he doesn’t understand how the Imperials looming quietly in the alleys haven’t shut down this entire show by now. The thought slips away as he breathes it in, holds, breathes it out. It’s nice. The crowd is alive with whoops, whistles, hands clapping merrily in tempo with the jumps, spins, twirls and leaps. Balthier claps along and to his side, Fran watches contentedly.

Penelo stands out among her peers, Balthier can safely say objectively. She holds herself with a passionate ferocity and her body bends, coils, releases in a way that renders the audience as entranced as they are entertained. She moves like a desert storm, fierce, beautiful, the sheer silk she holds billowing in a breathless surrender.

She’s nice to watch, indeed. Hypnotic, even, with the alluring scent of snakehyps settled thickly along the square. But amidst the crowd, Balthier’s eyes search idly among the flames. Vaan is nowhere to be seen.

He thinks the performance is about to end, as the drums fade and the audience claps, and there is a slight lull. Penelo and her troupe pause in their own unique poses, their silks falling about them in a shimmer. But the drums pick up again, stronger this time, angrier almost, and the girls come alive with twists and twirls and the crowd - especially women - whoop and jeer as another set of dancers enter the square to join the women.

From several paths as if they were in the audience all along, the men enter, tanned and muscled - with them they carry blades. This is no improv, Balthier realizes as the men come alive with with spins, flips, the shimmer of dulled blade to their female partner. This is something that is long-practiced and deep-rooted; this is Rabanastre.

Thus, it really should be no surprise that this is when and where he sees Vaan, but somehow it is; Vaan emerges from some anonymous pocket in the crowd towards Penelo and she comes to life, moving towards him with her silk as he plays the crowd. With a practiced finesse, Vaan juggles the two blades that barely kiss the edges of his masculine angles and lines; the curved metal juxtaposes his rigged torso almost tantalizingly. The other pairs do something quite similar for their own section of the massive audience, and it’s clearly a crowd favorite; the silk and blade shimmering in the fire, the men dancing with women, the danger, the passion. Rabanastre goes wild and the fire grows.

Balthier notes how Penelo watches Vaan approach her with a calculative gaze before leaping between the blades, pressing herself against him, and circling with him in a flawless unison, step-for-step. Penelo twists and yields to the shift of his rippling muscle and dulled blade, her silk trailing with his half-tied sash. Balthier scans the crowd to find he’s not the only one rather taken with the pair. He also finds, in that moment, that he is rather glad he declined to dance earlier, as he isn’t quite sure where his Archadian ballroom upbringing would fit in with hips and skin and drums like this.

Yes, indeed, he quite prefers to watch.

In a show of the same seamlessness, Penelo parts from him in a billow of silk from a perfectly timed gap in Vaan’s spins; she bends all the way back, reaching up in a graceful twist of hands and collapsing to her knees in a glorious fall. From here, she ends her number with the other women, and Vaan and the men move towards the crowd. In a brilliant show of blade-tricks, slow and calculated, over one shoulder and around the next, Vaan manages to encapsulate the same sort of exoticism the women before him did - it doesn’t hurt, either, the undeniable sway in his hips that the ladies in the crowd make no show to hide their appreciation for. With these reactions, Balthier sees Vaan actually break his character smiles almost-bashfully. Balthier watches, mesmerized and intrigued, as Vaan plays the crowd as well as Penelo had, and recalls back to the times in the battlefield where he truly could have sworn there was some untamed, wild artistry to the way Vaan wielded a blade.

Yet now in the North End’s square, it all seems to make sense. Through a veil of purple smoke Balthier is content to watch Vaan like a hellhound, another anonymous audience member swallowed in the crowd, safe in numbers. 

Until it becomes very clear that he _isn’t_ anonymous, and when Vaan tosses a blade in the air and twists to catch it in a flourish, he’s looking right at Balthier and his eyes are dark, kohl-rimmed, and filled with what Balthier can only describe as an utter display of _want_.

_Oh, dear._

The crowd cheers for his trick, or maybe they’re cheering for another boy’s tricks, or maybe they’re not cheering at all, because suddenly the only people in the square are him and Vaan; Vaan, who continues to sway his hips and frame his torso in blades that he spins with flicks of the wrist only years of practice could hone. Vaan, who won’t stop looking at him with parted lips and half-lidded eyes veiled by smoke that makes Balthier dizzy.

He’s seen that look before. Many a woman and man have given him eyes laden with want - yet the pirate can’t help but doubt it here. Surely _Vaan_ isn’t looking at him, and if he is, he isn’t looking at him _that_ way. Surely the desert churl who can match rhythm and steps like any other around him isn’t singling him out, and surely that same churl isn’t licking his lips as the flames do to the night sky. Surely none of this is happening - the eyes, the lick, the bite, the shimmer of lithe youth - surely this is just an illusion of the smoke, a mirage, indeed.

Without even sparing a glance to Fran adjacent to him, Balthier turns abruptly and leaves the circle. Air is what he needs. Air, and space, and quiet. Not drums. Not snakehyps. Not Vaan looking at him in a way only sultry tavern-girls-turned-bedmates give until they bend to whatever sick wanton will he has in the moment. Surely this is all a trick of smoke and fire. 

He pushes through the audience, fueled by a fervent need to _leave_ \- Bangaa, Viera, Seeq, Hume alike all gather at midnight in the square - and just as fervently he hopes he's just imagining Vaan’s gaze still boring into him like the seethe of Firaga until he disappears.

 

\--

 

Balthier stretches along the edge of a fountain nested near South Gate. He breathes in and out, deeply, until his head pounds no longer and only an idle, pleasant buzz remains; sobriety from the spirits frees him of one handicap, yet the snakehyps, he gathers, takes longer to dull. He’s not sure how long it’s been when he rises, but Rabanastre is quieting down by the time he opens his eyes and cracks his neck; festival-goers head to their homes above and below the streets in a disjointed murmur.

 

With little to no trouble Balthier heads back to the inn; the Royal City is large indeed, but time spent here over and over again throughout these months has made it far easier to navigate than before this folly began. He almost wishes for the Strahl and his cabin in his current state of disarray, but knows those moogles work on maintenance through ungodly hours of night-into-morning, and he doesn’t quite fancy being kept awake by the sound of drilling and the constant chirp of “Kupo!” every time Nono barks an order to his subordinates. (The fact Nono _has_ _subordinates_ is enough in itself to keep Balthier awake with side-splitting laughter, but he’d never tell the moogle; he’s doing just fine enough without a wrench to the face.)

As he walks, he reflects on the eve’s happenings, and finds that they all add up to be rather one for the books. What with Fran’s morbid shock at whatever a moogle gave him to sample, to an even more morbid history lesson of Rabanastre’s slave trade drugs being burned for fun, to Vaan’s invitation to dance, followed by Vaan’s ... _performance_ , well, Balthier finds his thoughts wandering in the shape of one large question mark. He looks forward to going to bed, and waking up to a fresh day where perhaps he can reflect on it with a clearer head. The snakehyps still pull at his thoughts like a pleasant weight, and as he wanders through the streets, the image of Vaan bores into his mind over and over again.

Vaan. What _is_ he going to do with that churl?

As of late, Vaan has wormed his insistent little self into a small recess of Balthier’s headspace and as of late, he finds his fondness for the boy has seeped into other corners of his mind; corners that keep him up at night, even, in the quiet of his room and the heat of his own hand. Long has their journey been thus far and long will it continue to be; he has vowed to keep these thoughts just as they are - _thoughts_ and no more - as they are simply images that get him by at night before he finds release and sleeps.

Balthier has thought frequently, in the swimming wake of these orgasms, that the images he conjures of Vaan which cause his cock to twitch and ache ( _Vaan lying beneath him, mouth open wantonly, eyes glazed with desire, dusky nipples hard and love-bite swollen, panting and begging his name, oh yes_ ) can simply be no more than an aesthetic attraction mingled with some twisted, guilty pleasure. He has always been a pretty little thing. A tad too loud, a mite bit grating (all right, extremely loud and incredibly grating), but fair-faced and finely built. It balances out, for the most part; and the journey stretched far behind them now has aged Vaan up, somewhat. There is a newness in Vaan's eyes that was not there before. He has grown, and Balthier has watched it happen from the beginning, with an attraction that grew into a desire smiting him with want.

There truly _is_ something about Vaan that makes Balthier oh so very drawn to the idea of bending the street thief over the Strahl's console and rewarding him after a flying lesson with a long and thorough fuck. There truly _is_ something about Vaan that makes Balthier want to see the street-thief’s eyes widen at the length and girth of him, stammer nervously, and crawl towards him on the bed with an insatiable yet inexperienced curiosity in those gunmetal-grey eyes. 

Vaan, or at least _Balthier’s_ Vaan that he visits at night in these fantasies, has become commonplace for him to explore. He doesn’t know quite _why_ this is his go-to imagery to get off, only that it is, and gods does it do it for him.

Oh _yes_ , at this point Balthier can practically predict what it would be like to bed the boy. He’d teach Vaan the ways of his airship and then teach him the ways of his bed; Vaan would follow every order, and Balthier has nearly a list memorized of what they would be; Vaan would be loud, unabashed, needing to bite the pillow to muffle the sounds of his moans as Balthier finds his sweet spot over and over again in the tight heat of his body. Balthier thinks that if he ever _did_ follow through with these curious fantasies, Vaan’s enthusiasm coupled with his inexperience would make him a truly delightful lay.

Again, though, he writes those off as cheap and cliche fantasies ( _really, Balthier, a teacher-student kink, how very original,_ he’s told himself); ones that just so happen to instantly get him hard and off easily on nights when he just needs to.

And he’s needed to a lot lately, it seems. Fran, at least, has taken notice to the evidence of these fantasies seeping through whatever tiny nuances slip into his interactions with the Rabanastran; though Balthier would wager the Viera knew about this before even he did. The thought itself is maddening.

It’s all maddening, he thinks ruefully as the image of Vaan dancing in firelight is burned behind his eyelids when he rubs at his temples. It’s all maddening, and he wants to go to bed.

He is grateful that by the time he’s teased apart thoughts he’s no stranger to at night, the inn is before him and Fran is waiting by the entrance. He must look out of sorts, because the first thing she says is,

“The snakehyps pry at you too, then?" 

Balthier rubs at the corners of his eyes much like Fran did hours earlier; There’s no question he’s still reeling from the high. He can only imagine the toll of her migraine, but if she’s in pain she doesn’t show it.

“Tell me, does your head still hurt?”

She nods, once. “Aye, though the ache fades. Now I am ready to sleep, knowing you are here.”

Balthier grins. “Why, Fran - what trouble could I possibly get into without your guarding gaze to keep me at bay?”

She’s already on her way in when she says, “Far more than I care to know.” He watches the mesmerizing sway of her silver ponytail gnarl to and fro in the dark as she leaves him. “We rise early for the skies, once repairs are finished. Good night, Balthier.”

“Sweet dreams, darling,” he responds, and heads up the stairs, through the separate hall to his room.

 

The pirate is pleasantly surprised, as he pads along the corridor, that this inn is free from festival-goers of the rowdy type. He and Fran lucked out this eve, apparently, and this particular inn falls on a quiet street away from the celebration. It is evident in the calm dark of the hallway. Balthier counts the door numbers until he’s nearly to his room.

The voice behind him is far too close for comfort and he realizes it all too late.

“Off to bed so soon?"

Balthier startles, somewhat, and turns to see Vaan emerge from the shadows like a furling whisper of smoke.

“Vaan,” Balthier exhales, and inwardly curses the snakehyps still dulling his senses. Any other instance like this - a figure following him in the dark - and he would have nearly slit the boy’s throat with his senses in proper order.

Vaan approaches him, still smelling of firelight, and leaves no room to ask questions with a smile like that; Balthier won’t let him know Vaan took him off guard. Unfortunately, he probably doesn’t need to disclose such, judging by Vaan smirking like a Coeurl with very expensive cream.

“Enjoy the show?” Vaan asks, voice low with an edge of knowing as he stops near Balthier to lean against the wall. Balthier straightens and crosses his arms, sparing an almost tragic glance to the door he nearly made it to. He'll humor the youth, at least for now. 

“Ah, quite the _performance_ indeed. Yourself and Penelo certainly educated me on... Dalmascan standards.” Eh, not his best work, but it’s a start.

“You left early.” Vaan, in very much Vaan fashion, jumps right to the point. The grin on his face is somewhat vexing. 

“Did I?” Balthier retorts idly, hoping his bored drawl will belie how he feels otherwise.

“Snakehyps too much for you, newcomer?”

Balthier’s laugh is quick and heavy, and with the strain his throat rasps. He'll play this game for a while longer.

“Mayhap’s that, paired with the drums and _Dancing Dizzying Dalmascan Dames_ , I found myself in need of a break of the festive foofaraw.” He thinks he’s doing a mighty fine job of distracting himself with alliteration, but Vaan isn’t buying it.

The Dalmascan moves in, and Balthier realizes distantly that he’s pressed up against the door; the brat has him cornered. In this proximity there is truly no denying the story Vaan’s kohl-darkened gaze held back at the fire, and it holds it still in this moment, and the story screams of _want_ and _now_.

Balthier can’t look away from it. He gulps, dryly - gods he could use some water. Vaan is just looking at him, sizing him up, darkened eyes crinkling with the curve of his lips.

“Can I help you?” Balthier finally manages to croak at the proximity.

“I saw you, y’know. Watching me.” And suddenly Vaan’s lips are oh-so very close, and oh-so very nice to look at. It's dark around them, save for a couple dim oil lamps placed down the length of the inn’s hallway; the distant light softens the shadows of Vaan’s features but does nothing to hide the way Vaan's eyes size him up like a hungry lobo as he presses Balthier against the door.

Here, Balthier cannot find solace in a bustling crowd of people, or Fran, or the thrum of city noises. None of that can distract him from this. Here, in the darkness of the hall, there is only him and Vaan, and it is getting increasingly difficult to ignore the thoughts from earlier pushing to the surface in ways that are dangerously close to manifesting.

“I didn’t know you danced.” Yes, skirt around the subject. Maybe Vaan will get bored, and go to a bar, or to Lowtown, or to Penelo, or any other shade of _away_ , because if he doesn’t this will not end well. 

Or will it?

Vaan’s next line nearly seals the deal when he presses his bared chest against Balthier's torso, hand sneaking to some space behind him, before whispering, “There’s a lot of stuff I can do that you don’t know about.” 

There is no semblance of the situation Balthier can grasp onto at this point that can possibly deny Vaan’s intentions. Balthier wishes there was some word or lilt of his voice to misconstrue Vaan’s motives but there is none, and if there were, he’d be an outright fool to conjure it from thin air. His next words tumble from his lips in a grin of his own; if Vaan wishes to indulge in a curiosity less than innocent, well, Balthier thinks the boy will get what he deserves. Teasing a pirate of his stature, well - Balthier wagers Vaan may have a lesson to learn.

Not the other way around.

Not the other way around at all.

“Shall that be something I remain grateful for?” he can’t help his curiosity, the buzz in his head thrumming its way like a Jaharan war drum to his lips, and he itches to kiss the brat, if that would shut him up. Anything to shut him up. His resolve wanes in what is the beginning of a great crumble. Vaan is prying at every avenue that holds together the tower of Balthier’s composure and he’s just about to throw himself off it into the wind.

“Why don’t you tell me,” Vaan responds, and Balthier curses for what seems like the umpteenth time in the past several hours as he hears an idle click behind him; Vaan has picked the door’s lock, and herds Balthier inside with a nudge.

As soon as they're in the room, they're kissing, and what's worse is Balthier can't tell who kissed who first - Only that they’re against each other, mouths searching, wet and hot and earnest, and there is truly no turning back now. Not when Vaan’s kiss feels this good, not when the way his lips drag across Balthier’s makes the pirate’s entire body pulse with a kaleidoscope of raw desire. 

 With all this, it’s no wonder Balthier finds himself at somewhat of a loss as they pull away. His eyes must be reflecting just that, because Vaan grins again.

“Oh right,” Vaan breathes, and Balthier is mesmerized by a patch of moisture left by his own tongue glistening Vaan’s lower lip, “Forgot to mention snakehyps can be an aphrodisiac to some,” he half whispers, and Balthier takes in a sharp breath as he feels a hand teasing at the hem of his pants.   _Well,_ he thinks, _that explains a rather lot._

“Is it, now?” he starts, and he just can’t take his eyes away from Vaan’s lips, “Failed to mention that, did you, during our little impromptu history lesson earlier tonight?” 

When Vaan bites his lower full lip and drags his pretty white teeth along it, Balthier feels any semblance of what’s left of his resolve wither in what seems to be the start of a sandstorm.

“Sorry." A maddeningly boyish chuckle, a smile that sounds beautiful in his voice. "Must’a slipped my mind.” 

One by one the pieces are adding up around him belatedly; Vaan’s hand is behind his neck, pushing and skimming his fingers across the soft bite of his hair, and the other works at his shirt buttons with deft and nimble fingers. He wants to kiss him again, but Vaan beats him to it. Balthier finds the shock of the entire circumstance still pulsing through his veins but he meshes against Vaan's lips with an intrigued surrender and inflamed curiosity. The desert brat is awfully good at kissing.

 _Curious,_ Balthier wonders, and pulls away; the sound loud in comparison to the quiet inn room. _Very curious, indeed._

Vaan’s body is radiating heat like an entite, warm and broad and so, so beautiful in the dim light of the bedroom. It’s almost enough to take Balthier’s breath away, if he had any left to take. There's something exotic about Vaan that has Balthier's thief-fingers itch to touch; something glinting in Vaan's eyes that beckons the magpie-part of his brain.

“Someone’s enjoying themselves,” Vaan nearly laughs mockingly. Balthier would twist the haughty hellion's wrist if it wouldn't ruin the mood. 

“You’re not exactly having a terrible time yourself.” Balthier’s not sure where he’s mustering a voice at this point but he’s rolling with it in the way a man does when life throws a complete fucking curveball at you in the form of a sexual fantasy-turned-reality. Vaan’s eyes are accusing and knowing and Balthier thinks it would be awfully polite of the brat  to stop smirking at him like he’s a butt-end of a long-running joke.

“Please, I’ve been wanting to do this for ages.” And as if to prove a point, he kisses Balthier a third time, short enough for Balthier to lose his chance at pressing back but long enough for the brat to nip at him. “At least I have the guts to follow through with I want.”

“Beg pardon?” Balthier quirks a brow and laughs the question out, noting the way Vaan’s hair falls in front of his dark eyes; the desert thief peers through his flaxen locks like a predator stalking its prey.

“I’m not an idiot, Balthier,” He says this flatly, and nudges him once more towards the bed waiting behind to catch his legs, “I know how you’ve been looking at me,” and suddenly Balthier’s seated on the mattress, leaning back on his elbows and rendered speechless as Vaan leers over him with naked arms spread on either side, “I know that you’ve wanted me, just as bad as I've wanted you." The thief steals the gap between them with another kiss, this one somehow more seductive than the last. Vaan’s tongue draws out a long sigh from the pirate’s nostrils before he pulls away with a grin that shows teeth. "Maybe even more."

And suddenly Balthier realizes this is not the fantasy-Vaan he’s envisioned.

 Why no, he realizes in that moment, he might just be in for something very different altogether.

When they part, Vaan’s on top of him and they’re both gasping. Balthier is faintly aware that his own hands are roaming the broad, muscled expanse of Vaan’s warm back and taking it all in like silk and gold. 

Well, no use denying it now.

This could be fun.

"I'm not sure from where your sources come, but I must admit they've proven to be quite...reliable," Balthier purrs, running his hands over Vaan's abdomen to feel the rippling taut muscle. There's no sense in denying himself of the boy at this point. "Seems you've caught me red-handed." He skims his hands up, past his neck to trace Vaan's jaw and pull him in for another kiss. When they break, Vaan laughs softly.

"Sources? You mean the blatant obvious stares you've been giving me for like, weeks? Real subtle, 'Thier." The nickname doesn't miss the pirate's ears and he hates how endearing he finds it, especially considering the circumstances before him. The fact the thief can still manage to be endearing, perched above him with pretty lips spilling sharp words, is enough to drive him mad. "Also, Pen's totally noticed too. She's a surprisingly good wingman. And she also thinks I should be doing this," Vaan adds, dipping to take an earring in between his lips and tugging lightly and oh, oh no, where in all of the circles of hell did Vaan find out that's the one thing that send Balthier over the edge?

He can't help the groan that slips from his lips. Damn Vaan. And damn Penelo too, it seems. 

Vaan hasn’t stopped smirking since they’ve stepped in the room and something within Balthier makes him want to wipe it clean off the boy, as if Vaan is fully aware that the pirate’s fantasies have involved a demure virgin Dalmascan splayed beneath him flushed with embarrassment and desire. Instead it’s Balthier looking up at grey eyes emboldened by kohl faintly smeared at the edges, undeniably sexy as all hell, and screaming _how’s this for a fantasy, you stupid pirate_. 

There are a lot of questions Balthier begs to voice, but somehow he can’t remember any of them. Instead it’s Vaan that asks,

 “So how does it feel to finally have me like this?” he voices aloud idly as he slides down Balthier’s body; his fingers trail along the expanse of his chest, exploring the thin, dark curls of hair that lead lower, lower...

“I mean,” and Vaan continues idly as if he’s talking about the weather to a shopkeep in the bazaar, “This has gotta be like, what, a fantasy come true for you?” And there goes one belt that lands on the floor with a muted thud. “Is it what you imagined,” And another, joining it haphazardly. The snakehyps swim still in his head but he’s sure it’s Vaan that’s rendering him dizzy. Balthier’s looking down the length of the bed at him, and Vaan dares to arch his back and peer up at him salaciously. “Having me in bed like this?” Vaan briefly fumbles with the zipper of Balthier’s trousers - the leather creaks and strains with the growing bulge beneath it, and when it’s freed the pirate doesn’t realize he’s been holding his breath. Vaan takes Balthier’s hard length in his hand, pausing for a moment to marvel at it - he can tell the Dalmascan is more than happy with what he sees, “Or, how about this?”

Vaan's open mouth is far less annoying, Balthier thinks, when filled to the brim with the length of his throbbing cock. He sucks in a gasp through long-clenched teeth, and as Vaan drags his lips and tongue up Balthier’s length, the pirate’s jaw slackens.

 _Gods,_ he thinks - or says, maybe. He honestly isn't sure.

Despite the heat of the summer solstice, Vaan’s hot mouth feels like heaven. He goes at Balthier like this for quite some time, slow and thorough, rhythmic and near-worshipping in a brilliant show of debauchery. The snakehyps gnawing at the coherency of Balthier's headspace is nothing compared to what Vaan is doing to him.

When Vaan pulls away from his cock the first time in the wake of an exceptionally lovely lick, he props his chin upon his rested elbow along the mattress and gazes up at Balthier. 

"Thoughts?"

 _What in the name of Belias' balls are those,_ is what Balthier responds inwardly, but he only gazes at Vaan as lusts clouds over, mixing quite wonderfully with the snakehyps. He knows what Vaan is really asking. Though not needed, he's almost seeking permission. He's giving Balthier an out. Balthier realizes that if he wanted, he could tell Vaan to stop. To forget this happened. To wake up tomorrow, board the Strahl, head to their next destination, fall back into their dynamic alive with banter and tension. He's at a point, right now, where he really still could bid Vaan a good night and take care of the issue between his legs with his own hand like he has so very often lately. They could forget about this - Snakehyps. Liquor. Festivities. They could write this off as a farce.

But he takes another good look at Vaan and realizes with a near-laugh that there is no way in seven hells he could ever say no to this. He sighs in relief - the freedom of his own resolve feeling so sinfully good - and runs his hand through Vaan's hair appreciatively, noticing the lovely down-softness of the flaxen tresses.

He's been on the edge of the precipice for weeks, staring at the boy, and it's here he hands control over to the mercies of the wind. "Do keep going."

And so Vaan does, returning to his cock with an almost selfish agenda, and Balthier's ringed fingers tighten around Vaan's hair. There are some points where Vaan lifts his mouth completely from Balthier’s cock only to run his tongue up and down the length reverently; he does this, flitting it about for some time, before submerging Balthier again in wet wanton heat. Once more, Vaan works him slow and thorough, and Balthier is well-fucking-aware that at this point he is moaning. It would almost be rude not to.

Vaan’s full lips pout around his girth in such a way that makes them even softer, more plush along the shaft as he thoroughly coats every inch of Balthier with his tongue.  Balthier watches Vaan close his eyes in some zonal reverie, holding the full weight of his cock in his mouth for the pure enjoyment of being filled; it’s then that Balthier comes to the horrifying discernment that Vaan is no stranger to any of this, and the Archadian will be lucky to get out of this alive.

The older man shudders at this realization, spreading his legs wider. Vaan must like that response because in that moment he deep-throats Balthier whole and holds him there like that, heavy and throbbing in the stretch of his jaw. Balthier can feel his cockhead pulsing along Vaan’s tongue in a way that somewhere, on some plane, in some far off country is probably illegal and he’d be thrown in prison the rest of his life for it, and yet somehow without question it would totally be worth it. 

“ _Vaan_.” The word is guttural, laced with incredulity and lust, and it’s all Balthier can manage to say. Vaan’s eyes are closed in concentration as his throat strains to hold Balthier like that for the visual alone (and gods, Balthier cannot honestly have conjured anything to this level of pure distilled sex in any of his wildest fantasies); he’s fully sheathed so that the Dalmascan’s lips graze his abdomen, and when Vaan comes up for air the sound is slick and ends with a gloriously obscene pop. Vaan’s open lips are kiss and cock-swollen as he gasps for air and his eyes don’t leave Balthier’s, his chest heaving with exertion and hair stuck to his face. He is gorgeous and the Archadian’s breath catches in his throat at the sight. It is his turn to be filled with raw want, and it rips through him like an Aeroga spell that leaves him breathless.

 No nights alone with his hand in the Strahl could have prepared him for this.

Vaan licks a blatant smear of Balthier’s pre-come from a corner of his mouth and sits back on his heels, between Balthier’s legs, to gaze down at the Archadian in a way that is nothing short of self-satisfactory and licentious.

Balthier isn’t sure what kind of expression he’s wearing but it must please Vaan, because once the blonde catches his breath he crawls up to the older man to kiss him senseless again.

His cock misses the boy’s mouth but he’ll let it slide for of a kiss. Balthier’s arms greedily hold Vaan against him and he pries open the seam of Vaan’s lips with his tongue that Vaan readily, readily accepts. Each kiss seems better than the last, each kiss leaves Balthier in desperate need and want of more, each kiss leaves him thinking _why did we ever stop kissing to begin with_.

As if on cue with the question, Balthier’s need gives an aching twitch. Vaan’s attention is required elsewhere, it seems.

Were he in his right mind he’d realize an impassioned response to this degree from a bedmate is nothing short of dangerous for a man who swears fealty to naught but the sky, but he’s far past the point of rational thought - were he ever in his right mind to begin with, he wouldn’t have this boy in his bed, and really what fun would that be?

 “I have a better idea of what to do with that cock of yours,” Vaan mumbles against Balthier after a particularly sloppy kiss.

“Do tell,” he manages to pant as his hands sift wildly through Vaan’s flaxen hair like gold. He wants to pull it, to rein him like a mount, steer him like a yoke. Vaan strips him of his white linen shirt; it waves to the floor in a quiet surrender though the gesture at this point seems laughably redundant.

“I think I’ll show,” Vaan responds as he lies on the modest inn bed, and pulls the pirate on top of him with a smile. They kiss for what seems like the umpteenth time and Balthier imagines he could really never tire of lips like these. They feel like pillows to his own - Tchita Down stock, luxuriant and indulgent, and he presses against the softness with a desperation that belies every facet of his long-built facade. Gods, too, he’s so fucking hard, and he doesn’t know what Vaan wants to do with his cock but whatever it is, Balthier will let him if it’s anything like how the past near-hour has been.

Vaan shimmies between Balthier’s legs and guides the pirate to kneel above him, Balthier planting his knees either side of the blonde and quickly piecing together Vaan’s plan. And once he does, he can hardly wait for Vaan to adjust - placing pillows behind his blonde head and propping half-up - before Balthier helps himself to Vaan’s mouth on his own accord.

Vaan takes him in with an eagerness that at the very least matches up with Balthier’s long-tired fantasy of the blonde. He tilts his head ever so slightly as Balthier tests the waters of both his own restraint and Vaan’s limits. The latter, it seems, doesn’t exist, for Balthier sucks in another incredulous breath as he pushes further into Vaan’s throat.

And in a lovely display of sexual prowess, Vaan takes Balthier’s entire length and dares to fucking _moan_ as he does it. The vibration doesn’t skip Balthier’s cock brimming with desire, and though there’s no more length to push in, he nudges his hips anyway.

The pirate’s ringed fingers greedily sift through Vaan’s hair, pushing until he supports the back of the blonde’s head. He holds it fast there, while his other hand grips wildly to the wooden headboard, lest he float away to another plane completely.

Vaan closes his eyes, takes in a long breath through his nose, and waits for Balthier with an idle flick of his tongue that nudges at the shaft. The man swallows and stills in a show of restraint if only to take in the sight below him; Vaan, bathed in a warm sunset glow from an oil lamp, jaw wide and slack, dark eyes glazed with lust and snakehyps, splayed underneath him with his mouth obediently open, wanting, filled. 

The mere sight alone is enough to make Balthier come. There mere sight alone is enough for him to grab Vaan on both sides of his head and fuck his face until he spills in a mess of incoherent appreciation and curses. 

But he doesn’t, and uses this moment as an excuse to catch his breath.  This is all just way too fucking good, and some part of his mind says he should apologize to Fran for all this, but truth be told he has no idea who Fran is right now and politely tells that part of his brain to bugger right the fuck off because he’s busy getting the best blowjob of his entire life, thank you very much.

He takes in a shuddering breath and his eyes never leave Vaan’s. Slowly, he pulls half-out of Vaan’s mouth before pushing in again, and the groan that leaves his throat is so loud he thinks he imagined it. (He, at the very least, hopes he imagined his eyes rolling to the back of his head, but no, he’s rather sure that actually happened too.) 

“By the _mist_ , Vaan,” he gasps, and begins a slow and deep rhythm as he proceeds to ride Vaan’s face by request. 

It seems that the nights alone with his dick buried in hand and vision of Vaan against him could not have prepared him for the reality of it all -  the Dalmascan’s hot mouth caresses Balthier with full lips that feel like home, and Vaan pays reverent attention along his engorged length, deathly precise and unabashedly sloven as he completely fucking tears the pirate apart.

And it sounds hideous, but he’s never felt this good in his entire gods-bedamned life.

Balthier’s breath catches in his throat and he is petting him, earnestly, desperately gripping Vaan’s hair as the boy takes his cock with only a slight strain by the furrow of his brow; it’s crystal clear that Vaan wants Balthier to feel as good as possible, and it’s enough to make Balthier’s entire body jerk in tandem with a moan.

 

After a few thrusts that rock his dick deeper into the heat, Balthier feels himself losing it, and with an incredible show of strength he pulls from Vaan’s wet heat and gives him a chance for some much-needed air. Vaan takes the chance with no complaint.

The Dalmascan is breathless, flaxen hair fanned about him like a halo despite the fact he’s the _actual bloody devil incarnate_ , gasping in a way that almost says, ‘the sooner I catch my breath the sooner I can put that cock back in my mouth’. Balthier watches him, almost hypnotized, and Vaan rests on the modest pile of pillows with an open mouth twisted at the edges.

He gazes up at Balthier, licks his lips, and reaches for the man’s cock. Insatiable little chit is going to be the death of him.

“You taste good,” Vaan says, idly stroking the underside of Balthier’s hard-on with an upturned palm; he’s still panting as he says it. Hell, Balthier is too. And in a fit of the moment the pirate pushes his cock towards Vaan’s face and rests it upon the boy’s cheek, right next to his open mouth. Vaan’s breath skims across it and Balthier’s hips edge forward at the sight; Vaan doesn’t seem to mind the weight of his dick against his face. It’s obscene and depraved and so hot, Balthier can barely stand it.

“Like what you see?” Vaan asks, still breathless. Eyes still locked above on the brunette, Vaan tilts his head slightly to Balthier’s cock, plants a sloppy kiss near the head, and licks the underside with a brilliant show of debauchery framed in a toothy smirk.

“Oh,” Balthier finds his voice and pumps his dick across Vaan’s face once, twice, three times just because, before dragging the head along the boy’s full lower lip, “To be sure.”

It’s seamless now. Vaan opens his mouth again just as Balthier pushes in with an appreciative moan, and his neck cranes and bobs to meet Balthier's thrusts as they work in tandem. Balthier catches sight of their shadows splayed against the wall to his left from the oil lamp and appreciates the silhouette briefly before turning his attention back to Vaan.

His eyes are closed in concentration and his lips slacken around Balthier’s girth to accommodate his thrusts. He looks so good, so damnably good like this. And suddenly, a sickeningly lecherous desire for a visual fuels another conquest altogether.

He reins his thrusts to a slower, more gentle pace, and lets go of the supportive hand behind Vaan’s head in order to dragging it across the boy’s face. His fingers trail across soft skin down to his mouth, where he hooks a ringed finger through the corner of Vaan’s lips and pulls gently, watching in awe as his cock slides in and out, in and out, in and out. Vaan accommodates in an explicit show of tongue and saliva until Balthier’s fingers are soaked and he feels his orgasm looming.

His eyes flutter and he nearly doubles over at the sight, but manages to brace his hands on the headboard. “Gods, Vaan, gods, what you’re doing to me,” he gasps, and Vaan merely bobs his head and quickens his breaths as he works Balthier closer and closer and closer.

Distantly, behind the hum of pleasure numbing his coherency, Balthier realizes that the boy is stroking himself. His head lolls back and he gazes behind him at the sight; Vaan’s pants are still on but legs are wide and his hand is desperate on his own thick length, knuckles brushing along his rumpled sash in haste. His pulls and twists with a rhythmic fervency matching the bobbing of his head, and Balthier bites his lip.

The groan that crawls from Balthier’s throat is involuntary and instinctive. He doesn’t want to come, he really doesn’t, because this is truly one of the loveliest sights he’s ever seen in his travels across Ivalice. But Vaan is stroking his cock and his pace is quickening, his own body tensing and twitching and he’s fucking _moaning_ around Balthier’s girth and _that’s it, that’s it, that’s it._

“Vaan, Vaan, _Vaan, damn_ ,” Balthier, torn apart at the seams and completely undone, pants in a jumbled collage of words and sounds and earnest twitches of his hips as his orgasm crashes through him. Balthier spills into Vaan with abandon and a messy series of disjointed thrusts; the headboard he grips creaks under the strain of his hand.  Vaan takes in a sharp breath through his nose as he strokes furiously in tandem with the bobbing of his head, and rides it out until he, too, is coming, spraying across his own abdomen with low and muffled moans.

Balthier is leaning over Vaan with both hands on the headboard by the time he lifts his cock out of the boy’s mouth, and Vaan jolts up immediately to avoid choking on the pirate’s ample come. From his anchored spot at the headboard, Balthier shifts heavily and with much effort from his perch over Vaan, and collapses in a post-coital haze.

When he manages to open his eyes, he glances down at his softening cock to see the aftershocks of his climax leaking another very thick droplet of come from the tip, and thinks, _that’ll have to be tended to in the morning._

He’s not sure how much time passes when he re-configures reality and discerns which way is up, where he is, what his name is, and a myriad of other rather important facts to be sure of in order to be a functional hume being. But when he does, he finds through very hazy, very half-lidded eyes that Vaan is cleaning his mess off with the sash before joining Balthier on the pillows.

“Well?” Vaan pries, but his throat is dry and rasps somewhat in the wake of perhaps being fucked senseless for the past gods-know-how-long. If he’s as tired as Balthier he doesn’t show it. And if he isn’t, well, Balthier is happy to re-visit his notes where he discovers Vaan to be the literal devil incarnate, and that would explain it.

Balthier is hardly awake at this point; the afterglow mingles with the farewell wisps of snakehyps and soon he fancies he'll be long gone. And really, are there any actual words to describe what just happened? Even he has trouble summoning a response adequate enough to show appreciation. “Quite the performance, indeed.”

The pirate is idly aware of a shift in the mattress, and suddenly Vaan is kissing his cheekbone. “Consider this revenge for not dancing with me tonight.”

“Remind me, then,” Balthier’s lips barely move but he still smirks, “to absolutely never dance with you, ever, in my entire life.”

Vaan grins; Balthier feels it against him in the closeness of their faces. “Something tells me you won’t need reminding.”

Balthier is so, so close to the precipice of sleep, but he can’t deny looking at the boy one more time as Vaan lies next to him in bed. His grin must look stupid, because it almost seems like Vaan is about to laugh at him again. “I have...questions for you,” Balthier murmurs as his breaths deepen.

The last thing Balthier sees before he surrenders to sleep is Vaan’s smile twisting wryly.

“I doubt they’re important.”

 -

Balthier wakes in the morning, late and bleary, to several things he notes almost immediately upon opening his eyes. One, he is surprisingly not hungover - mayhaps a boon of the snakehyps. Two, it’s still grossly hot and dry, and he really could use some water (and food, come to think of it, he's hungry as a Lobo). And three, the bed save for him is empty, the only strands of evidence from last night being his own trousers still half-off below his knees and the rest of his clothes a heap on the floor.

And four, he still has zero answers.

Never mind, then, he thinks.

He’ll get them soon enough.

 


End file.
